Several hundred people packed Monumental Baptist Church on Saturday afternoon to remember Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles as a national civil rights icon and a pillar of his South Memphis community.

'A great history maker has gone home where he belongs,' said the Rev. James LaVirt Netters Sr., senior pastor at Mt. Vernon Baptist Church-Westwood and Kyles' close friend.

Kyles, who died April 26 at the age of 81, was pastor at Monumental Baptist Church for 55 years. He was an associate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and stood with him on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel when King was shot and killed in Memphis in 1968.

The jubilant service, with several musical interludes and cheering in the spirit of a homegoing celebration, lasted three hours and included speakers from Kyles' family, clergy and public servants. Letters were read from the White House and former President Bill Clinton.

Rev. Jesse Jackson was scheduled to give the eulogy, but his daughter, Santita Jackson, said her father was delayed in Africa. Netters gave the eulogy instead.

In 1964, Netters and Kyles were two of seven pastors who showed up — out of more than 500 who were expected— for a protest in which black pastors would ride in the front of the segregated public buses in Memphis.

'We decided that we were not going to let that moment pass,' Netters said, recounting how despite their small numbers, they boarded a bus and sat in front.

'They told us to go back to the back, and we told them we were comfortable where we were,' Netters said.

A few stops later, 14 police squad cars arrived to arrest the pastors, Netters said. After less than a day in jail, they plotted to do it all over again two weeks later, with a bigger group that would include more than just pastors.

'Fourteen days later, buses in Memphis were integrated,' he said.

Kyles' son, Dwain Kyles, said members of the church, in his father's last weeks and days, made sure their pastor was never alone.

'People would come take shifts to sit with him just to keep him company,' Kyles said, adding that people from across the country have called to tell him how his father helped them in some way or another.

Former Memphis Mayor A C Wharton gave one of the remembrances, noting that it was hard to be solemn when speaking of Kyles. He brought the audience's attention to Kyles' photo on the front of the service program.

'You want to say, 'Is he getting ready to preach or getting ready to say one of his jokes?'' Wharton said.

He described Kyles as a pastor who preached not just to 'save humanity' but to 'serve humanity,' and a community advocate who liked to remind city council members, 'whose City Hall is this, anyway?'

Wharton, who lived down the street from Kyles, said Kyles' love for service was evident by the lack of fence around his house. Anyone was welcome to walk up to his front door and knock.

'We're not going to get a fence because it now falls to us,' Wharton said of his own home.

'They can come knock on our door any time, because that's what Rev. Billy Kyles would have wanted.'

Read or Share this story: https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/2016/05/07/rev-samuel-billy-kyles-remembered-for-connection-to-civil-rights-history-south-memphis-community/90521320/